Stupid Question: Which knife will your wife choose?

[manhthap]

Hi all,

If I’m not mistaken, most people here are men. However, I think in most households, your girlfriend or wife is usually in charge of cooking. So, I have a question: When your wife or girlfriend chooses a knife, do they consider it the same way we do? And what is their top priority when choosing a knife? Can you share your opinion?

 

[Jovidah]

However, I think in most households, your girlfriend or wife is usually in charge of cooking.

I think this is an incredibly flawed assumption, especially in this place.

FWIW of the knives I have here my girlfriend prefers the Takamura R2 Migaki. Reasons being that it's on the shorter side of things and it's very thin so it's a real smooth cutter, and being light helps when she's using it like an oversized petty...

In practise her most used utensil is a spoon though since I do almost all the cooking and she just has to shovel it into her face.

 

[riba]

Guess I do the majority of the cooking but to answer your question :
Sharp, thin behind the edge, short, stainless, knuckle clearance.
The Nakamura Hamono HSS Bunka-bocho 140mm (hap40) fit the bill perfectly

 

[nickrut]

My wife uses a shun premier santoku for most of the cooking she does. Not sure why she doesn’t use some of the nicer knives but that’s her choice. I keep it sharp for her

 

[dchang21]

 

[jaydee]

180mm gyuto Kanetsune SK steel. (my almost 20y. old "petty" that cost like 35$)
I love using it too. Perfect profile.
Kanetsune 180mm gyuto

For her its the size she is comfortable with, she likes the aged look with the patina.
The patina (mono steel) is pretty much lemon proof and at HRC60 the SK steel is pretty tough.
(she chops nuts and chocolate with it regularly with no ill effects)

 

[SwampDonkey]

I do 98% of the cooking in the house. I wouldn't be in to this silly hobby/addiction if i didn't cook a bunch. The wife has weird cutting technique so she doesn't like all my tall knives or rectangles and is a bit intimidated by the swarm of 240-250s.

She uses a 170 ginsan santoku or a 200 mm Merion gyuto most of the time. I recently swapped this Y. Kato santoku for a Mazaki ginsan one and she's loving it.

*Merion pic from when she left it on the board overnight after cutting stuff

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

We split the cooking.

By far, my wife's most used knife is a 150 Kanetsugu Pro M:
https://japanesechefsknife.com/coll...etsugu-pro-m-series-petty-120mm-150mm-2-sizes

She does most everything with it. Her second most used is probably her Murata paring knife.

 

[TheDza]

My wife and I both prep/cook together. She uses/rotates through all of the knives we have (including my giant Shihan, Tetsujin, TxK) but she is partial to nakiris, especially the Shindo nakiris.

 

[enrico]

Takamura r2 santoku. Its seen a lottttttttt of use since buying it almost a year ago

 

[Just a DK]

K Sab 8in Authentique stainless, Miyabi bread knife and HSC /// custom stainless petty in full exclusivity.

I've tried at this point like 10 diff knives for her to swap out that K sab... but won't happen.

So far casualty knives include

Takamura r10 - Too thin
Ryusen VG10 - dammy is too fancy
Kipp AEB-L LP - too tall
Laseur AEB-L - S grind doesn't let her smash garlic
Yoshikane SKD - too long and no wa handles,
Tetsujin Ginsan - no wa handles
Z Kramer SG2 - too tall and fat
Nigara SG2 - too much drag from dammy
Shibata Bunka - the heel cut me twice ex-communicado
Nao Yamamoto Ginsan Square - ok but no wa handles

 

[stringer]

We split cooking and cleaning duties in the kitchen based on our schedules. My wife's main knife is a 175mm gyuto that we got 15 years ago at the Japanese Knife Company in London. She also had me commission a petty and paring knife from HSC. And she has a little Henry Hyde utility knife that she got from the East Coast Gathering a few years ago. She would really like an updated small gyuto from Henry. I keep meaning to bug him about that.

 

[SwampDonkey]

she is partial to nakiris, especially the Shindo nakiris

Keeper!

 

[brownsugar69]

my gf uses the tojiro nakiri i bought as my first knife works well

 

[Greasylake]

My gf and I split cooking and usually we cook together. She tends to gravitate towards nakiris for the height but will occasionally grab a misono gyuto if cutting meat, but usually she leaves the meat prep to me. She does have a Kitchenknives.id nakiri which is a bit more robust and she'll use that to cut meats and whatnot, it fills the role of a Chinese cleaver more or less.

 

[cleanfil]

Tak R2 and Harner are her go-to since they are left on the board a lot.

 

[cooktocut]

Every woman I’ve had in my house since I started collecting knives have pretty much all had the same favorite, including my current gf

Edit - misread the post. So my gf will only use one of my nice knives if I force it into her hand. Otherwise it’s the cheap beaters in the drawer if she ever does any cutting, which is super super rare since I do all the cooking. So no, she has never used this knife. This is always just everyone’s favorite visually.

 

[tostadas]

Here's a pic I snapped of my wife's knife the other day. This was several hours after she already left the house.

 

[dtro]

Global santoku. The only other knife in the house are cleavers and a global paring knife.

 

[timebard]

Tanaka ginsan 150mm petty is her go-to. Sometimes one of my 200-225 stainless gyutos (FKM, Shihan, etc) get used too for bigger jobs.

 

[M1k3]

Here's a pic I snapped of my wife's knife the other day. This was several hours after she already left the house.

View attachment 337181

At least she didn't leave it in the sink, under all the other dishes.

 

[TheDza]

Keeper!

Haha, I showed my wife your post. she appreciates the sentiment and also wants to pass along that she likes your username. She asks if by any chance your are a shrek fan

 

[SwampDonkey]

Haha, I showed my wife your post. she appreciates the sentiment and also wants to pass along that she likes your username. She asks if by any chance your are a shrek fan

A Shrek fan only as much as every other late millennial that watched it as a kid, though it holds up better upon adult rewatch than most other movies in its class.

The username actually comes from a travel lacrosse team we played during summer tournaments and it always made me laugh. Granted, we were the "fightin possums" so good mascots all around.

 

[panda]

not a stupid question at all and highly applicable.

my lady usually victorinox utility knife. small easy to handle unintimidating, thin. can throw into dishwasher. and edge can come back from simple pull through sharpener.

 

[Heckel7302]

I love to cook. I do pretty much 100% of the dinner cooking in our house and have for almost 20 years. My wife says I ruined her for cooking savory food (she bakes a lot). She does it so rarely she feels totally out of place.

But when she does need to cut stuff, she will either use the Vic Fibrox or a small serrated Windmuhlenmesser "tomato knife" I got for her. I bought her a Takamura Santoku and petty but she is scared of them. She won't touch any of my fancy or vintage knives, except for a vintage 14" Dexter bullnose ham knife that she LOVES for cutting cakes and bars and stuff.

 

[Gshep91]

I do 98% of the cooking in the house. I wouldn't be in to this silly hobby/addiction if i didn't cook a bunch. The wife has weird cutting technique so she doesn't like all my tall knives or rectangles and is a bit intimidated by the swarm of 240-250s.

She uses a 170 ginsan santoku or a 200 mm Merion gyuto most of the time. I recently swapped this Y. Kato santoku for a Mazaki ginsan one and she's loving it.

View attachment 337149
View attachment 337148
View attachment 337150


*Merion pic from when she left it on the board overnight after cutting stuff

How dare she!

My wife doesn’t have a favorite. She just grabs whichever one “looks stainless” and throws it in the sink.

It’s like a game of roulette whenever I come home from work

 

[Gshep91]

Here's a pic I snapped of my wife's knife the other day. This was several hours after she already left the house.

View attachment 337181

At least she didn't leave it in the sink, under all the other dishes.

Live Photo of the sink right now -

Takamura chromax 135 petty poking through.

 

[dtro]

Anyone have male partners that are this bad? Statistically there must be a few women or gay men here?

 

[Jovidah]

Well I can talk about my brother... when I saw how he stored and maintained his knives my conclusion was 'he should never get anything nicer than a Victorinox'. Honestly I was probably the same before I educated myself...
Knife abuse is definitly not a gender-specific thing.

 

[chefwp]

your girlfriend or wife is usually in charge of cooking

You are hilarious. My wife only knows where the kitchen is because she has to walk through it to get to the garage...

Just kidding, she cooks almost every Tuesday. Her Tuesday knife is a semi-stainless Yoshikane 210mm gyuto.

This summer we are trying to get the teenagers more involved. On Monday our 13 y.o. made Thai red chicken curry almost without any help, their knife of choice is a 6 inch Wusthof Classic. Tonight the 16 y.o. is making penne alla vodka, I'll get back to yinz about knife choice...